Google Ads: Mock Campaigns
Welcome to my paid ads portfolio! Here, you’ll find mock Google ads campaigns I’ve created, including strategies for maximum conversions and website traffic. These campaigns demonstrate my ability to design, optimise and analyse campaigns, alongside displaying an understanding of bidding strategies and Performance Max.
Mock Campaign 1: Maximum Conversions
Campaign Overview:
Campaign type and goal: Search Campaign & Increase leads for hiking shoes.
Objective: The client owns a footwear company and wants to increase leads for their Hiking Shoes on their website. They would like to implement a Google search campaign to drive more sales.
Target Audience: Ages 18-65, outdoors enthusiasts, hikers and adventurers (Outdoor adept study)
Budget: $2000 monthly (USD)
Strategy: Maximise conversions using smart bidding
Geographic location: United States
Note: For smaller companies or accounts with limited historical conversion data, I would recommend starting with a maximise clicks campaign to gather initial data before transitioning to a maximise conversions strategy. However, in this mock campaign, I am working with a well-established brand that already has sufficient historical data. This allows me to leverage Google’s Smart Bidding algorithms effectively from the start, ensuring the campaign is optimised for conversions.
For more details on the benefits of a maximise clicks strategy and when to use it, please refer to the key information section.
1. Keyword Research
Feeding Google’s algorithm with high quality and relevant keywords can enhance ad relevance. This helped target the correct audience and reflects what they are searching for.
This can help reducing spend on irrelevant clicks/keywords and increasing the likelihood of conversions.
The high competition for keywords indicates a strong consumer interest.
The company is well-known and has a high budget, allowing them to compete in keywords related to their brand and an unrestricted budget allows them to bid higher in the auction.
2. Campaign & Bidding strategy
Campaign type and goals: I created a new campaign > Leads > Search campaign > inserting webpage URL > name the campaign for organisational purposes
The bidding strategy selected was “conversions”.
3. Audience | Keywords | Headlines
Location was set to “United States”, and the target language was set to “English”. Audience segments are in observation mode to collect adequate data first before making segmentation decisions.
Google’s Ai 🤖 feature selects keywords, headlines (15), descriptions (4) and site links (4).
Merrell can include branded keywords such as “Merrell hiking shoes”. This will have lower competition and higher conversion rates.
Keywords from the data I collected were added. All keywords were assigned to Broad Match.
Broad Match: Hiking shoes, hiking footwear, shoes for hiking, hiking equipment
Phrase Match: “Best hiking shoes, hiking shoes for men, lightweight hiking shoes”
Exact Match: [Hiking shoes, hiking shoes for men, durable hiking shoes]
Negative keywords: Free, Sale, Hiking poles, Hydration packs, Tents.
4. Sitelinks | Call-outs
Call-outs (CTA’s) and sitelinks were added for optimisation.
The CTA’s I used are specific to hiking, which may resonate with the potential consumer more than generic CTA’s such as: “Buy Now!”, “Buy Today”.
I added some fun but informative site links and descriptions.
Users are most likely to engage with visual formats and adding these assets will increase the CTR.
This boosted the campaigns optimisation score to 100%
5. Ad Groups
Campaign group 1: Tailored specifically to this campaign. The URL’s would navigate the user to the appropriate landing pages (Men’s, Women’s, Kid’s).
Campaign group 2: This ad group is an example for if the company wanted to branch out from hiking shoes and cover different types of footwear.
Campaign Ad Group 1:
Ad Group 1: Men’s hiking shoes
- Men’s hiking shoes
- Best Hiking shoes for men
- Men’s trail running shoes
Ad group 2: Women’s Hiking shoes
- Women’s hiking shoes
- Women’s waterproof hiking boots
- Lightweight women’s trail shoes
Ad group 3: Kids hiking shoes
- Kid’s hiking shoes
- Hiking Boots for kids
- Waterproof kids hiking shoes
Negative keywords:
- Women’s hiking shoes
- Kids hiking shoes
- Mens running shoes
Negative keywords:
- Mens hiking shoes
- Kids hiking shoes
- Sandals
Negative keywords:
- Mens hiking shoes
- Women’s hiking shoes
- Trainers
Campaign Ad Group 2:
Ad Group 1: Hiking Shoes
- Hiking Shoes
- Trail Shoes
- Climbing Shoes
Ad Group 2: Trainers
- Running Shoes
- Running Sneakers
- Sports Shoes
Ad Group 3: Dress Shoes
- Evening Shoes
- High Heels
- Dress Shoes
6. Optimisation:
A/B testing: Test headlines, descriptions and CTA’s. Identify which are the best performers.
Google Analytics: Identify where the user drops off (example – Landing page issue).
Recommendations: Use the recommendation section to opt-in to campaign enhancements.
Audience Segmentation: Utilise demographic information collected from the campaign to tailor the ads to higher converting demographic groups.
Keywords for refinement: Utilise the search term report by adding high value keywords and remove irrelevant, less converting keywords.
Bid adjustment: Increase bids for higher converting keywords.
Seasonal adjustments: Implement holiday specific ads – “Autumn Hiking Sale – 20% off!”.
Note: Before potentially switching to an alternate bidding strategy, it is recommended that the campaign has achieved at least 50 conversions over a 4+ week period.
Mock Campaign 2: Website Traffic
Campaign Overview:
Campaign type and goal: Search campaign & increase website traffic to blog page.
Objective: Increase blog & website activity by driving traffic to a blog post.
Target Audience: Travel enthusiasts, backpackers, outdoor adventurers , cultural adventurers.
Budget: £80 Weekly
Strategy: Maximum clicks
Geographic locations: All locations & territories
Keyword Research:
I conducted keyword research based off the blog post “The Ulitmate Guide to Guilin, Xingping & Yangshuo“.
Competition for keywords related to this campaign were mostly low – medium.
Campaign type & bidding strategy:
Bidding: “Clicks” was selected and I did not activate “Set maximum CPC bid limit’. This will allow Google to adjust the CPC bids dynamically without restrictions.
Audience | Keywords | Headlines
Location was set to “all countries & territories”. Google added its own keywords based of the blog posts landing page. I manually added some keywords based off prior research.
I segmented audience types “Travel, Trips to China, Travel to Asia Pacific”, whilst keeping the “observation” setting selected. This will aid future analysis as if one segmented group is performing well, it could be an indicator to direct more funds into that group for potential higher conversion rates.
Sitelinks | Call-outs
The sitelinks and descriptions will take users to relevant pages they might be interested in.
The CTA’s use keywords from the blog page.
Budget
For a small and new business, focusing on efficiency, starting with a conservative budget and prioritising high-intent keyword is an appropriate place to start.
Once profitable strategies and keywords are recognised, the budget can be gradually increased. When sufficient conversion data is collected, a switch a to maximum conversions or target CPA can be conducted.
Key information: Bid strategies, Performance Max
Bid strategies
Maximum Clicks – An automated bidding strategy aiming to get you as many clicks as possible. You have the option to set a CPC limit on bids or have no limit. Google will adjust bids automatically aiming to get you as many bids as possible.
Target Impressions – Sets bids with the intention of showing your ads at the very top of the page, on the top page or anywhere on Google’s search results.
Max conversions (Smart bidding) – Automatically sets bids aiming to get the most conversions within your budget. Note: Capped budgets can limit the maximum conversion potential.
Max conversion value – Automatically sets bids aiming to achieve the highest conversion value possible. Suitable for organisations wanting to sell high value products in contrast to selling an increased number of lower value products.
Target CPA – Sets bids automatically to achieve a specific CPA, used for campaigns with a cost per conversion goal such as acquiring a new customer for hiking shoes at a CPA of $25. You are bidding the amount you want to spend for a conversion.
Target ROAS – Sets bids to achieve a specific return on ad spend, best for campaigns focusing on revenue generation. Google will take your target return and find customers that align with the target to optimise for a return. Note: You need to be tracking revenue for Google to be informed of what your tROAS should be. For lead based businesses, it is important to define what conversion value points are most important to your business. This will help Google understand the difference in value between the conversions.
Performance Max:
What are the benefits of upgrading to a Pmax campaign?
- Pmax allows advertisers to access more of Googles channels from a single campaign.
- Creates ads from videos, images, descriptions, headlines and audience signals that were added to your asset groups.
- Upgrading from a dynamic search campaign to Pmax can result in a 15% increase in max conversions and conversion value.
- Pmax campaigns should follow the same targeting settings, bidding strategy and conversion actions as the performance campaigns.
- They should be conducted for 4-6 weeks to gather significant data.
How to optimise a Performance Max campaign:
- Insights – Monitor performance, optimise, troubleshoot, identify new market opportunities.
- Search terms insight card – Compare what search terms your ad appeared against.
- Demand forecast – See upcoming predicted demand.
- Audience insights – Analyse what audiences are converting at higher rates.
- Asset audience – Find out what resonates with audiences.
- Budget pacing insight – Analyse how your campaign utilised budgets and their predicted future spend. Allowing for budget relocation if needed.
